Most TD’s upload the data from WinTD or SwissSys, which could upload the final standings as easily as they upload game results. No extra data entry would be required. Unlike school, grade, graduation year, etc, the final standings are known to the program as a result of just pairing the tournament.
Neither of the current upload formats have fields for standings information, regardless of how it is structured.
So that means not only does there have to be a new upload format, but the programmers for WinTD and SwisSys have to release versions that can prepare them and TDs have to upgrade their software.
That doesn’t get into the programming and database changes necessary to process, store and utilize that data at the USCF’s end, including support for manually entering or changing that information.
That’s not an argument against changing MSA, but it won’t be something that can be accomplished without quite a bit of work by more than one organization.
However, you changed the format not long ago, and neglected to include information that would enable MSA to display accurate tournament standings in the new format. Probably there will be another opportunity to change the format at some point in the future, and hopefully you won’t overlook tournament standings the next time. If SwissSys and WinTD have not yet done the upgrade for the most recent format change, perhaps it is not too late to incorporate this extra information before the software is upgraded.
Which change is this one?
For a number of months I’ve been using the existing WinTD upload function to bring across the color information on the tournament uploads I’ve been doing, starting on the first tournament in 2012 that I uploaded on 1/28.
main.uschess.org/msa/XtblMain.ph … 3-10336015
There are currently two upload formats that can be used, Brian.
The first is the DBF format that was defined by USCF staff in 1991, which was 11 years before Gary Prince came up with the ideas behind MSA.
The second is a draft version of a revised DBF file format that was put out for comments in 2006 but never officially released. However, WinTD implemented it a few years ago and it was decided that since it did have color information in it, something we definitely wanted TDs to be able to provide, since, among other things, FIDE now requires it, we would go ahead and support it.
The issue currently under discussion (how to show ordered results consistent with what the tournament used, possibly via data fields for ‘actual’ final score, standings, trophies or prizes awarded or tie breaks) was not one that was mentioned by anyone back when the draft format was under discussion.
A number of other fields have been added to the USCF’s internal crosstable/ratings database over the years, including several fields added in the past year as a result of motions passed by the Delegates last August, that would need to be included in a revised upload format, but at this time there are no fields defined in the USCF’s internal database dealing with ‘actual’ standings, standings, trophies or prizes awarded or tie breaks.
Creating a new upload format will not be a trivial task. There are probably other issues that SHOULD be dealt with haven’t been discussed yet, here or elsewhere.
It does have the necessary field - the pairing number. As long as the software orders the players in standings order when submitting, you have all you need.
Let’s see, based on the whims of two, count them, two people, the USCF and numerous TDs are being asked to spend time and money to create/support/implement data system changes in order to answer the alleged question by a newbie parent concerning tiebreaks. Nice.
A number of years ago, our organization was asked to make a number of “tweaks” to its constitution and bylaws for running a chess league. Each individual change, passionately argued for by by the amendee, would have increased the costs to the organization as well as added to the workload of the match TD. The changes would have been hardly noticed by most of the participants of the league. There was no general clamor for any of the changes. The incremental adjustments were pressed to increase the “efficiency” of the league, but would take a significant amount of work to implement and were likely to create unintended consequences. Over the years we had already streamlined the league concerning team placement, tiebreaks (both individual and team), formatting of data, etc., while increasing prizes, and taking it out of debt to make it profitable. Year after year, more “tweaks” were suggested by this individual. All of these tweaks were interesting to him, but were a pain for the organization to have to deal with every year. Many meeting were wasted in arguing down and tabling the new bylaws suggested. This is what I see going on here. Somebody has an interesting suggestion to make a change but has little idea or does not care about the level of difficulty and cost to implement it. How about just explaining tiebreaks to the alleged parent who asks about them yourself? That is good public relations. Point out the rulebook sections and let them use a calculator on their own. Takes about 5 minutes to do, but of course, heaven forbid that you would spend your own time to do that. So much easier to suggest that the USCF change everything and publish arcane data instead. Nice. Making systemic changes in the way the USCF rating system handles data to answer trivial questions by a hypothetical parent is a waste of time and money.
Please let me help you redesign your website.
I’ve found that depending on the parent/coach it might take as much and 15 minutes, but 3-5 is generally more common.
I readily admit that it used to take much longer before I added early announcements that “trophies for tied players will be decided by tie-breaks”, then listing the tiebreak order and, especially, “all tie-break systems are unfair but the ones chosen are designed to be unfair in a blindly unbiased manner”. Tournaments prior to when I started making that announcement sometimes had parents who wanted to spend a half hour or more arguing about which tie-breaks should have been used, how unfair they are, or even whether or not they should have been used. After that announcement everybody knows up front that tie-breaks will be used, just what tie-break sequence will be used, and an agreement in advance that acknowledges that they are unfair even though they are necessary and blindly unbiased.
Before the trophy presentation I also post a final cross-table in score/rating order with a BIG note written right on the standings sheets saying “NOT in trophy order”. So when MSA has the same order the parents/coaches have already seen that note.
I feel that anybody doing a trophy tournament with newbie parents/coaches should include early announcements like that or expect that eventually they will have a difficult conversation (for me those difficult conversations resulted in those early announcements).
Two people WRITING HERE. I bet we could go to a scholastic tournament and poll parents of scholastic members and find a significant number who would agree.
I further bet that we could ask a number of organizers if they would like the ability to not have to post their crosstables because MSA would address it already (so long as they use Standard tie-breaks) and I bet a number of them would also agree.
Further, ZERO TD’s are being asked to do anything. So that part of the argument is wrong.
Therefore, I think your argument is weak and fallacious on its face.
A passionate but utterly faulty analogy. Continuing to upgrade the MSA so that tournament management software can be enhanced and tournament submission and reporting enhanced is a natural consequence of improvements in technology and the experience of our users with the Internet. Thus, it is absolutely nothing like your analogy and is driven by factors completely different than your analogy.
Do you not believe that the public (organizers, TD’s and players) will increasingly want a system that provides tournament management software links from TLA to reporting? Pieces of that are already appearing from third parties! The argument here is simply that USCF should be proactive rather than reactive in this process, so that it can be the leader, which it needs to be.
What happens when a competitor builds a comprehensive online/desktop tournament management system? Where is the value in USCF membership at that point?
How about even better - we put explanations online.
This isn’t about just tie-breaks - you don’t seem to get that. Tie-breaks are a step of improvement, and the tip of the iceberg.
Get your head out of the past.
I don’t think I’d argue that tie-break methods are unfair - they seem to all be fair. They are, however, imperfect.
The USCF approach -
Provide a service 60% of the way and then tell the user why they don’t need and shouldn’t really want the other 40%, or if they do, they can do it themselves.
People want to see tie-breaks. The solution? The organizer can post their tournament software results online.
Great - we’ve just eaten up more time and effort for our organizers/volunteers, AND we’ve driven our users to look at other websites other than ours.
Do you guys really not see the big picture here? Is every core-ish USCF member actually an amateur radio ham at heart, and wants to do it himself?
Yes, Bill Smythe is a smart guy. Do most of us want to enter results on a TRS-80 (or whatever he used) to print them - and not upgrade - because that works just fine?
Listen guys- there’s an old saying - if you want to be successful with your customers: If they ask you the time, don’t tell them how to make a watch.
As far as making a change goes:
A) require organizers to enter the tie-break sequence for all players.
either tedious or needing a program modification or requiring a spreadsheet upload that would need to be parsed, and requires a change to the upload program and MSA
B) have a web address added to the upload process so that the tie-breaks can be linked to.
requires a change to the upload program and MSA, and needs the organizer to put the results on the web
C) have the organizers enter the tie-break sequence into the upload process.
requires a change to the upload program and MSA and requires any games with a different standings result versus rated result to be put into an extra games section (actually I prefer to do that anyway)
D) list the standard tie-break sequence
any tournaments that do not use the standard tie-break sequence would spawn more complaints than currently. Examples would be the scholastic nationals and the IL state all-grade where accelerated pairings resulted in cumulative being replaced by Sonnenborg-Berger. Round robins also first use Sonnenborg-Berger, but that could be set up as the standard tie-break sequence for that type of tournament. The standard tie-break sequence for perfect scores is first a blitz game, which is not included in the rating report.
The current listing states that the results are not in tie-break order (the 60% approach you mentioned). Option D would be more like a 90% approach where the last 10% fosters much more anger (hey, the organizer messed up because you are telling me the tie-beaks give different trophies than were awarded) than the current problematic 40% fosters.
I’d rather have 40% of the parents slightly disappointed because the tie-break sequence isn’t listed, as opposed to 5% of the parents absolutely furious because the listed tie-break sequence doesn’t match up with what was actually used.
If they ask a question, you answer it then and there. You do not make the national organization spend time and resources and/or turn itself inside out in order to answer it, a process that can take days or weeks to do. Tiebreaks are not that hard to do, but they do take some time to calculate. They also require the completion of all of the games. The questions on tiebreaks almost always come during the last round of the event when everything is pending. At best only a tentative answer can be given. You can post the results and tiebreaks on site after the last games finish so that the parents can see the tiebreak order. After that, all that matters to them is the rating. Asking the TD and the USCF to do more work in inputting and processing the data seems to me to be a waste of time and money. Why make it harder for the TD to finish his work? It is hard enough already, as a previous thread has noted.
As for the fairness of tiebreaks, they are equally fair and unfair. In a short event (3 or 4 rounds) with a large entry, the final tiebreaks are dependent on a lot of variables - your starting position, how your first round opponent did, withdrawals, byes, 1/2 point byes, upsets etc. A first round loss, even if you recover to tie for first place, will kill your tiebreaks. The tiebreaks do not fully consider the quality of the opposition; the player who comes in second can sometimes play stronger players than the first place person he has tied with. In tournaments with up and coming kids, you are often playing players who are stronger than their supplement rating and starting position. That is why it is best to tell parents not to worry about tiebreaks, because of their randomness, and focus on the quality of their child’s play.
Number 1, no one has ever suggested organizers enter this; therefore the argument is specious.
Number 2, all tournament management software is capable of outputting this now. This is a matter of USCF setting up a new data file entry and program managers adding that export to their tournament management software.
Thus, its no more work for the organizers/TD’s than it is now.
Argument refuted.
No suggestion was made for a web address. Once again a specious argument.
What was suggested was that we provide a hyperlink to contact the affiliate - which could easily be an email address. Many affiliates already have that information as part of the TD/Affiliate support area and their general contact info.
Again, no additional work for the organizer.
Argument refuted.
No suggestion was made to have the ACTUAL tie-break available immediately. There is a suggestions that MSA continue to evolve and improve overtime.
It requires a change to the upload program and to MSA - NOT organizer work. While I also think it best to put them in a separate section, such games can simply be flagged in the Tournament Management software and that process can be handled by the software.
Again - not an organizer issue, but a programmer issue.
Argument refuted.
That’s possible but not clear; Standard tie-break order would be a secondary option. If someone is clicking on it, its possible/likely that there’s a question already. If the tournament isn’t using a standard order, it should be clear in the announcements and the MSA option should also be clear.
AND, is it clear that if there ARE additional questions (why assume complaints?) that the number of them may well be far less than the number of questions answered? So the overall total may well be less.
Also, this may be a good motivation for people to further standardize.
Finally, the system should CONTINUE to evolve - this should ONLY BE a TEMPORARY problem.
Argument refuted.
So, the current option says they aren’t in Tie-break order, and the new option says that they are in A tie-break order but it may not be THE tie-break order of your event. Contact the organizer.
How is that worse??
Argument refuted.
Now you answer one - why are people arguing for USCF to remain technologically stagnant instead of improving over time?
No part of the proposal changes that. Specious argument refuted.
Such questions SOMETIMES come after-the-fact to the national organization now. That’s part of the point. So in some cases they already do it.
In addition, the National organization should have a reason for existing. Support of players and organizers should be part of that reason.
Providing tournament submission and reporting tools for USCF rated events shouldn’t be an issue. Continuing to improve those tools to provide the information desired by its clients (both organizers/TDs and players) should also not be an issue.
The USCF already does this partially. Continuing to improve its services should not be an issue.
Specious argument refuted.
Not for a computer.
This is a perfect fit for MSA.
If using a computer you can post then as of each round without difficulty.
And yet after every single scholastic event I’ve run I’ve had parents ask about tie-breaks.
It does not make it any harder for the TD to finish his work, as already shown in the post to Wiewel. It is absolutely no more work for the TD.
If does make it easier for the TD in that they won’t have to post results online - they can just link to them.
It doesn’t sound like you fully understand the concept of fair, since none of your argument above makes an argument of fairness; I agree that they are imperfect.
I remember when there was first talk about moving submission to being more electronic and online, and charging more for paper submission.
People railed at how much more work it would be for an organizer to have to type in all this information and how terrible and horrible that was.
The arguments being presented in this thread against progress for the players and organizers ring solidly of those old, sad, tired arguments.
Again - we have a lot of projects to do. I’ve never argued that this should be the number 1 priority project for USCF systems.
But to argue flatly that the MSA should not continue to evolve and improve is - in my mind - an incredibly short-sighted attitude and simply shouldn’t be tolerated by the organization. We are here for our members, be they organizers or players, and the organization should take on tasks to support those groups. MSA improvement - including adding tie-breaks - does that.
The least resource-intensive solution, at least over the short term, might be to have a flag in the event header for ‘do not reorder crosstable when posting on MSA’.
That way organizers can choose whether an event is reordered into score group / rating
order on MSA or not. (Remember, the reordering occurs as the event is posted to MSA, not within MSA itself.)
This could work well for team events too, because it would be possible for team members to be grouped on the crosstable, assuming the original data is in that order. (A ‘team code’ would be even better, but that would be more work, too.)
Spoken like a man that does not do the grunt work. BS!!
Earlier in the thread, (A) WAS suggested. Argument refutation inaccurate. In my description of how it could be done I mentioned the options for how it could be done, and then you “refuted” it by saying that it could be done (at least you didn’t restate what I had already said for how to do it). Well, actually you said that all tournament software was capable of doing it now, and then went on to say that a change in the software and the upload process would be required - the two statements don’t exactly go together.
Earlier in the thread I suggested (B). Argument refutation inaccurate.
Earlier in the thread (C) was suggested. Argument refutation inaccurate. Again you said it could be done exactly as I mentioned it could be done (requiring a change in the pairing software for the upload file creation and a change in the upload program in TD/A).
These three options did have a short-lived shelf life in the discussion, but I provided them for completeness.
For option (D) your refutation is your personal opinion. Seeing as people are not currently paying attention to the note that the MSA listing is not in tie-break or trophy order (which is the primary reason for this thread even existing), it seems to be a specious argument that it will work with a note saying that it may not be the exact tie-break system used by the tournament.
At this point it seems like neither one of us will ever subscibe to the other’s opinion. ( I, of course feel that my opinion is the correct one while you disagree).